WR: How about as a kid?

MI: I was a big fan of Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon movies. All the old black and white movies. As a kid, I also liked the Kurosawa films because I like action.

WR: An appreciation you bring to your animated films.

MI: Yes.

WR: As a producer, how do you work?

Left to right: Maki Terashima-Furata, Mitsuhisa Ishikawa, Kunihiko Ikuhara, Randy Haberkamp, AMPAS Program Coordinator, and Ken Wakita, the evening's translator for Ikuhara-san.

MI: In the Japanese animation industry, there are three types of producers: (1) the executive producer, who collects funds for the production; (2) the line producer, who manages the production; and (3) the producer who plans the production. I do all three of those roles. I try to train the young people at I.G. who want to become producers in the same way: to manage all three categories. This production method is one strong point about Production I.G., and helps explain why we have been able to last this long while targeting solely the Japanese market.

WR: Do you see the American market as part of your future?

MI: Definitely. The Japanese animated films that are most commercially successful are the ones that are targeted toward the U.S. and other English-speaking territories. Seventy to eighty percent of non-Japanese profit comes from English language sales.

WR: Would it be a fair prediction that your next feature will be 70 minutes or longer?

MI: (laughing) Yes. The Academy, you know.

Will Ryan is an Emmy and Writer's Guild award nominee for his work as a writer/producer. He has also done voices for more than 1,000 film and television productions including The Little Mermaid. Among his current projects is the Annie Award-winning series Elmo Aardvark: Outer Space Detective!, which he created.